Posts by Nicole Belle

Nicole Belle is a regular blogger for Crooks and Liars.

Special Comment: Olbermann Urges Obama to Go After Bush Admin on Torture
Posted by Nicole Belle, Crooks and Liars on January 20, 2009 at 6:52 AM.

On the eve of his inauguration, Keith Olbermann exhorts President-elect Barack Obama to do the one thing that will tell the world that we are a country of laws, and that will enable us to look forward without fear that we could once again face the trampling of the Constitution and the slide towards totalitarianism we've seen in the last eight years.

Mr. President-Elect, you are entirely correct. As you say, "what we have to focus on is getting things right in the future, as opposed to looking at what we got wrong in the past."

And that means prosecuting all those involved in the Bush Administration's torture of prisoners -- and starting at the top.

You're also right that you should not "want your first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch-hunt." But your only other option might be to let this sit and fester, indefinitely.

Because, Mr. President-Elect, some day there will be another Republican president -- or even a Democrat just as blind as Mr. Bush to ethics and this country's moral force -- and he will look back to what you did about Mr. Bush -- or what you did not do -- and he will see precedent. Or, as Cheney saw, he will see how not to get caught next time.

Prosecute, Mr. President-Elect, and even if you get not one conviction, you will still have accomplished good, for generations unborn.

It's not as if Olbermann is going out on a limb here. On Obama's own site Change.gov, it's one of the most popular issues (though one the team is reluctant to answer), no doubt aided by Change.org's Bob Fertik's campaign to force it on the President-elect's agenda.

(Transcripts below the fold)

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Olbermann on Bush's Press Conference Hissy Fit [VIDEO]
Posted by Nicole Belle on November 1, 2007 at 7:59 AM.

This post, written by Nicolle Belle, originally appeared on Crooks and Liars

On Tuesday's Countdown, Keith Olbermann looks once again at proof that the world's last remaining superpower is being run by a petulant child prone to temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way.

My buddy Bill reminded me when he sent the videos of this comment he made in the threads yesterday:

Despite all of the constant bashing of this Congress [not just from Bush but from the left as well] this has been the hardest working Congress in US history despite the Republicans blocking 3 times more bills than ever before including the 8 times the GOP has blocked the Democrats efforts to end the war so far.

Which is all well and good, but right now, I think we have someone who needs a time out.

Bill Moyers: Cheney Has Been Fighting to Spy On You For Over 30 Years [VIDEO]
Posted by Nicole Belle on October 29, 2007 at 12:30 PM.

This post, written by Nicole Belle, originally appeared on Crooks and Liars

BILL MOYERS: Remember "The Lives of Others" - the movie that won this year's Academy Award for best foreign language film....a story of life under East Germany's secret police. The critic Roger Ebert said: "The movie is relevant today, as our government ignores habeas corpus, practices secret torture, and asks for the right to wiretap and eavesdrop on its citizens. Such tactics, he said, did not save East Germany; they destroyed it, by making it a country its most loyal citizens could no longer believe in." You want to say it couldn't happen here but we've been close before. During the cold war with the Soviet Union and then the hot war in Vietnam, a secret government mushroomed in this country. ...(transcript)

In 1975 the Select Senate Committee headed by Sen Frank Church (D-ID) began looking into allegations first reported by Seymour Hersh in the NYT and found that the CIA, NSA, FBI and other federal agencies had been involved in everything from plots to assassinate foreign leaders, illegal storage of poisons and biological warfare agents including anthrax, warrantless opening of mail and wiretapping and other intel-gathering on US citizens, and misuse of the IRS , just to name a few of the abuses by the Executive Branch they discovered.

One of the ways Congress responded to try and restore checks and balances was by passing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, which established a secret court to oversee all domestic wiretapping activity. Bill Moyers looks at the undoing of Congress' checks and balances put in place following the Church Committee hearings and the unprecedented expansion of Executive authority in the wake of 9/11. You can watch the entire episode online here.

Daily Show: "Larry Craig Spends An Hour With Matt Lauer, Wondering What He Looks Like In The Shower" [VIDEO]
Posted by Nicole Belle on October 19, 2007 at 5:54 AM.

This post, written by Nicolle Belle, originally appeared on CrooksandLiars

Jon Stewart and The Daily Show took a look at the unintentionally funny, yet all-too-sad interview disgraced Sen. Larry "Bathroom Scandal" Craig gave to Matt Lauer. I don't know about you, but at this point, I'm just angry at the ego that Craig has to have to continue to put his family through this kind of circus...especially when his responses just make no sense. What kind of man would humiliate his wife by having her go on network TV with this exchange?

LARRY CRAIG: I saw a piece of toilet paper on the floor and it happened to be under my heel. And I don't know if you've seen it before, but I've seen it: somebody walk out of a booth, with a piece of toilet paper stuck to their foot.

JON STEWART: Oh yes, I've seen that too. That would be embarrassing. And you sure wouldn't want to put your family through that indignity. Seriously, speaking of family, if you need proof that Larry Craig is NOT gay, here it is: he's married! To a woman! A she-woman! Let me tell you about Suzanne Craig. Even faced with an accusation by a man claiming to have had sex with her husband, she kept the faith.

SUZANNE CRAIG: I knew immediately that it was not the truth because the description he gave of Larry and some areas that only I might know about were wrong. On three counts.

Keep in mind, that description did not come from the cop in Minneapolis, but another accuser from the Union Station men's room in D.C. How many men have to make those kind of allegations (because there are others) before poor Suzanne's faith is shaken? How dare he humiliate his wife by having her appear on TV to refute these allegations for him?